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Marco Chitti

@chittimarco.bsky.social

6K followers 290 following 6.2K posts

Researcher on urban planning and public transportation. https://marcochitti.substack.com/

marcochitti.substack.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · Jun 21

It took quite a while, but the paper about the history of high-speed rail planning in Italy that I co-authored with @beriapaolo.bsky.social is finally out!

It's open source, so you can read it at length (it is pretty long),

But here is a TL;DR: 🧵

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 16m

Canada's transportat minister weighing in on the ViaRail rail crossing-induced delays saga here really gives powerful "find the guy who did this" meme vibes.

youtu.be/L8TVwi3-gSA?...

Suspect Guilty GIF

ALT: Suspect Guilty GIF

media.tenor.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

The story really looks similar to Rome's line B, which was called the EUR 42 railway until line A opened

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

When did they start to call it a metro? Its story seems similar to Rome's line B, which is born more as a standalone suburban train than a metro. Line A was considered the real first metro in Rome.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

I think it was formerly just mainline rail before being converted to metro.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

Most of Canada doesn't even have trains at all to its regional centres...

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

Budget issues? I just read an article about the Irish government bathing in cash because of the US hi-tech boom...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

I honestly don't know.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

Was Canada sensibly poorer than Australia?

I looked up, and apparently, it was until the 1920s, but then it sort of catched up?

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

Let me know how it is! I have been looking for a decent book on the history of Canadian railways. As good as Maggi's history of Italian ones.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1h

But Canada hasn't solved it either. There is no continuous controlled access 2x2 across the country.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

So Canada focused on mileage instead of quality rail in its most populated centers? Might ot also be that suburbanization started later in Canada? More like in the 1950s rather than the 1920s like in Australia?

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

That's like the version of a story you teach to kids... it must have been a bit more complicated than that.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Like this 😁

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Really. Why did we just get the bed things from the Brits, like FPTP, but the Aussies also got good things, like knowing how to run passenger trains.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

But Australia was sprawling around railways, Canada around highways. That's definitely a deliberate policy choice.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

But CN was created back in 1919. And remained public for 70 years...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Imagine taking your train in autumn for a ride to Yamaska or the Canton de l'Est. Or visit Beauharnois electric plant. Do a hike in the Laurentides. Go to a nordic spa in Rowdon. Do cross-country somewhere that is not the Mt-Royal. So many possibilities, just in a parallel universe.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

Like, why did Sydney keep expanding and electrifying its passenger railway network, but Toronto and Montréal didn't? Different economies? Different settlement patterns? Just different climates can explain it?
Can we just blame the proximity of the US again?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 2h

I would pay to have a regional railway network around Montréal like Sydney has. I would probably go visit some new corners of QC every other weekend.

Do we have a plausible theory why Australia went all in on electric suburban trains from the 1920s, but Canada didn't?

Every Sydney Station @sydneystations.bsky.social · 3h

LEURA, 108km from Central, is another charming station - everything is so charming up in the Blue Mountains - serving retail strip of cute cafes and shops popular with tourists. It has two platforms cut into the sandstone, accessed from an overhead concourse on a road bridge, with a lift. (1/3)

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 3h

I don't remember the full story (I read it while doing the archives), but maybe it was something like blocked by an administrative tribunal.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 4h

I'm sorry, folks, but it's not by replicating the service pattern of the 1950s that we are going to make rail service succeed in the 21st century.

800 million is probably enough to subsidy a great province-wide regional bus service for a decade or more.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 4h

I know I'm not going to make a lot of friends with this, but maybe the problem was thinking that it's a good idea to invest $800+ million to (partially) reopen a railway that carried 28k per year with a trip time way longer than a bus.

ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/219...

VIA Rail en Gaspésie : petit train ne va pas loin

À l'initiative du député Alexis Deschênes, des élus du Bloc québécois se rendent en Gaspésie pour presser VIA Rail d'y prolonger son service.

ici.radio-canada.ca

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 4h

At least a couple dozens! If not three!

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 6h

Fun story: in the late 1950s the govt, that at the time was very conservative, dominated by the right wing of the DC, tried to take over the control of the transit agency accusing the city of mismanagement, because the company was starting to lose money (a phenomenon that was touching every city)

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 6h

Socialismo municipale, pliz :-P

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